How to Slice and Dice Your Content Creation

How to Slice and Dice Your Content Creation

There are several ways to slice and dice your content. So how do you like your “turkey sandwich?”

Now, we’re all familiar with the staple foods consumed during Thanksgiving: You have the turkey, dressing (or stuffing depending how you prefer to say it), cranberry sauce, and gravy just to name a few.

With all the food prepared just for this annual event, there’s often plenty of leftovers. So, instead of throwing that food away, we try to make the leftovers stretch.

I know this all too well.

Growing up I recall my Mom offering creative ideas on what to do with our leftover turkey.

I was only interested in making turkey sandwiches. Actually, I loved turkey sandwiches and wouldn’t mind having them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

She mentioned we can create turkey soup, casserole, turkey pot pie, turkey primavera, and turkey enchiladas…I remember thinking she sounded like Benjamin Buford Blue aka Bubba Gump from Forest Gump explaining all the ways you can make shrimp.

Slice and Dice Your Content

Now, let’s all put on our “marketing” hats.

Repurposing your turkey dinner is similar to repurposing your content. It also reminds me of the popular “turkey dinner” content marketing analogy popularized by Rebecca Lieb from Altimeter group.

Essentially, she recommends creating one “big rock” piece of content that you can then slice, dice, and repurpose into smaller content which she calls “the leftovers”.

I love this analogy because it drastically increases your content production and inhibits any content creation mental blocks. If you’ve read my other blog posts, you understand the value of creating successful content.

But that’s easier said than done.

Like you, I understand the pressure to create valuable content can become overwhelming. Trying to create an eBook every month or coming up with new topics for blog posts is easier when you expand upon pre-existing content.

Here’s how to slice and dice your content creation

If you have an eBook that is performing well, you can repurpose it as a SlideShare presentation. Or you can take that same eBook and turn it into a month’s worth of blog posts. Or you can turn that blog post into an infographic or video. Or take your most popular blog post about a certain topic and turn it into an eBook.

Slice and Dice Your Content

You see, these methods for creating additional content are just like the methods used to create soups, casseroles, and sandwiches from the leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

I believe, however, Rebecca could expand this analogy by including the side dishes as potential content as well.

For instance, the dressing and gravy complement the “big rock” turkey. When paired together correctly, the turkey seems to be easily consumed.

Now let’s put this in the context of your content creation.

Once you have developed your “big rock” content and pulled it apart to create additional content, you now can focus on creating content that complements the “big rock” and all content that derived from it—just like the dressing and gravy complements the turkey.

For example, User Generated Content (UGC) and amplification of social media comments surrounding the “big rock” content should be considered the dressing and gravy.

UGC is a great way to create additional content. You can take your consumers’ responses, images, and video reactions about your “big rock” content piece.

Chobani is a good case study. The brand asked its fan base to show a little love, and the fans delivered. Fans made original videos like the ones below, posted creative photos, and commented on social media channels about the brand.

As a result, Chobani had an impressive amount of UGC to use for marketing their “big rock” initiative. Tweets were put on billboards, videos were featured on their website, and others were sent out to their social media followers.

Slice and Dice Your Content

Although this campaign is not created from a specific content piece, it showcases how you can use UGC to create a bigger buzz around your “big rock”.

Final Thoughts

Everyone likes to consume content in different ways. Some may want to read an ebook or whitepaper, while another is more fond of video content. Slicing and dicing your content will allow users to consume content in ways they are most comfortable.

In addition, increasing the variety of content available offers more ways for your content to be consumed. Naturally, the increase in consumption will cause an increase in the desired action you want from your consumer. So, now that you understand how to make your content stretch, it’s time to get cooking!

How will you use this knowledge of how to slice and dice your content to come up with a better content strategy? Let me know in the comments below.

Written by
Juntae DeLane

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